8,577 research outputs found
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An Ontological Approach to Chemical Engineering Curriculum Development
Continuous reflection and evolution of curricula in chemical engineering is beneficial for adaptation to evolving industries and technologies and for improving student experience. To this end it was necessary to develop a method to enable a holistic reflection on the curriculum and to examine potential areas of improvement and change. The curriculum was modelled using knowledge modelling through the development of an ontology, Chemical Engineering Education Ontology (ChEEdO) in the ProtĂ©gĂ© 3.5 environment. ChEEdO models topics, taught modules and the learning outcomes of the modules within the domain of chemical engineering. The learning outcomes were related to the topics using verb properties from Bloomâs taxonomy and the context of each learning outcome. The functionality of semantic reasoning via the ontology was demonstrated with a case study. The modelling results showed that the ontology could be successfully utilised for curriculum development, horizontal and vertical integration and to identify appropriate pre-requisite learning
An ontological approach to chemical engineering curriculum development
Continuous reflection and evolution of curricula in chemical engineering is beneficial for adaptation to evolving industries and technologies and for improving student experience. To this end it was necessary to develop a method to enable a holistic reflection on the curriculum and to examine potential areas of improvement and change. The curriculum was modelled using knowledge modelling through the development of an ontology, Chemical Engineering Education Ontology (ChEEdO) in the ProtĂ©gĂ© 3.5 environment. ChEEdO models topics, taught modules and the learning outcomes of the modules within the domain of chemical engineering. The learning outcomes were related to the topics using verb properties from Bloomâs taxonomy and the context of each learning outcome. The functionality of semantic reasoning via the ontology was demonstrated with a case study. The modelling results showed that the ontology could be successfully utilised for curriculum development, horizontal and vertical integration and to identify appropriate pre-requisite learning
Negative Energy: Why Interdisciplinary Physics Requires Multiple Ontologies
Much recent work in physics education research has focused on ontological
metaphors for energy, particularly the substance ontology and its pedagogical
affordances. The concept of negative energy problematizes the substance
ontology for energy, but in many instructional settings, the specific
difficulties around negative energy are outweighed by the general advantages of
the substance ontology. However, we claim that our interdisciplinary setting (a
physics class that builds deep connections to biology and chemistry) leads to a
different set of considerations and conclusions. In a course designed to draw
interdisciplinary connections, the centrality of chemical bond energy in
biology necessitates foregrounding negative energy from the beginning. We argue
that the emphasis on negative energy requires a combination of substance and
location ontologies. The location ontology enables energies both "above" and
"below" zero. We present preliminary student data that illustrate difficulties
in reasoning about negative energy, and the affordances of the location
metaphor.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to PERC 2013 Proceeding
The Case for Dynamic Models of Learners' Ontologies in Physics
In a series of well-known papers, Chi and Slotta (Chi, 1992; Chi & Slotta,
1993; Chi, Slotta & de Leeuw, 1994; Slotta, Chi & Joram, 1995; Chi, 2005;
Slotta & Chi, 2006) have contended that a reason for students' difficulties in
learning physics is that they think about concepts as things rather than as
processes, and that there is a significant barrier between these two
ontological categories. We contest this view, arguing that expert and novice
reasoning often and productively traverses ontological categories. We cite
examples from everyday, classroom, and professional contexts to illustrate
this. We agree with Chi and Slotta that instruction should attend to learners'
ontologies; but we find these ontologies are better understood as dynamic and
context-dependent, rather than as static constraints. To promote one
ontological description in physics instruction, as suggested by Slotta and Chi,
could undermine novices' access to productive cognitive resources they bring to
their studies and inhibit their transition to the dynamic ontological
flexibility required of experts.Comment: The Journal of the Learning Sciences (In Press
NEXUS/Physics: An interdisciplinary repurposing of physics for biologists
In response to increasing calls for the reform of the undergraduate science
curriculum for life science majors and pre-medical students (Bio2010,
Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians, Vision & Change), an
interdisciplinary team has created NEXUS/Physics: a repurposing of an
introductory physics curriculum for the life sciences. The curriculum interacts
strongly and supportively with introductory biology and chemistry courses taken
by life sciences students, with the goal of helping students build general,
multi-discipline scientific competencies. In order to do this, our two-semester
NEXUS/Physics course sequence is positioned as a second year course so students
will have had some exposure to basic concepts in biology and chemistry.
NEXUS/Physics stresses interdisciplinary examples and the content differs
markedly from traditional introductory physics to facilitate this. It extends
the discussion of energy to include interatomic potentials and chemical
reactions, the discussion of thermodynamics to include enthalpy and Gibbs free
energy, and includes a serious discussion of random vs. coherent motion
including diffusion. The development of instructional materials is coordinated
with careful education research. Both the new content and the results of the
research are described in a series of papers for which this paper serves as an
overview and context.Comment: 12 page
Exploration and categorization of pre-service physics teachers' alternative conceptions in superconductivity and nanotechnology
An exploratory case study research design was followed to explore and categorize 23 pre-service physics teachersâ understanding in the fields of superconductivity and nanotechnology at the Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. To elicit their responses, a five-stage categorical framework analysis was used. The five stages included identification of the thematic framework, familiarization, coding, placing the categories on a chart and finally, interpretation. A conceptual survey test (Conceptual Survey of Superconductivity and Nanotechnology) was administered to the pre-service physics teachers to form four independently homogenous ability focus groups. This was followed by focus group discussions whose data were analyzed to group their conceptions in both the epistemological as well as ontological categories. From the focus group discussions, six categories were considered from previous studies, namely; lateral alternative conceptions, ontological conceptions, naĂŻve physics, Ohmâs p-primes, mixed conceptions and loose ideas. Since this was a pre-instructional study, naĂŻve physics ideas and lateral alternative conceptions were dominant. NaĂŻve physics refers to the untrained student or human perception of various physical phenomena while lateral alternative conception refers the misconceptions individuals have on ideas that may be inconsistent with scientifically acceptable facts. Findings indicate that the pre-service teachersâ conceptions deviated from canonical scientific concepts, are diversified and inconsistent. The knowledge on pre-instructional conceptions will influence the development of evidence-based pedagogy, which is fundamental to the development of an effective physics education curriculum.Institute for Science and Technology Education (ISTE)M. Sc. (Physics Education
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Knowledge Cartography: Software tools and mapping techniques
Knowledge Cartography is the discipline of mapping intellectual landscapes.The focus of this book is on the process by which manually crafting interactive, hypertextual maps clarifies oneâs own understanding, as well as communicating it.The authors see mapping software as a set of visual tools for reading and writing in a networked age. In an information ocean, the primary challenge is to find meaningful patterns around which we can weave plausible narratives. Maps of concepts, discussions and arguments make the connections between ideas tangible and disputable.
With 17 chapters from the leading researchers and practitioners, the reader will find the current stateâof-the-art in the field. Part 1 focuses on educational applications in schools and universities, before Part 2 turns to applications in professional communitie
Helping Business Schools Engage with Real Problems: The Contribution of Critical Realism and Systems Thinking
The world faces major problems, not least climate change and the financial crisis, and business schools have been criticised for their failure to help address these issues and, in the case of the financial meltdown, for being causally implicated in it. In this paper we begin by describing the extent of what has been called the rigour/relevance debate. We then diagnose the nature of the problem in terms of historical, structural and contextual mechanisms that initiated and now sustain an inability of business schools to engage with real-world issues. We then propose a combination of measures, which mutually reinforce each other, that are necessary to break into this vicious circle â critical realism as an underpinning philosophy that supports and embodies the next points; holism and transdisciplinarity; multimethodology (mixed-methods research); and a critical and ethical-committed stance. OR and management science have much to contribute in terms of both powerful analytical methods and problem structuring methods
A Cross-Cultural Comparison Study: The Effectiveness of Schema Training Modules Among Hispanic Students
Previous studies indicated that misconceptions related to heat transfer, fluid mechanics, and thermodynamics, persist among engineering juniors and seniors even after they completed college-level courses in these subjects. Researchers have proposed an innovative instructional approach, the ontological schema training method, which helps students develop appropriate schemas or conceptual frameworks for learning difficult science concepts. Three online training modules were designed to help engineering students develop appropriate schemas in heat transfer, diffusion and microfluidics. The effectiveness of these modules was examined with two different student populations from two different universities (US and Hispanic). At each institution, participants were assigned randomly to a control or experimental group. The treatment for each group at both institutions was exactly the same. Preliminary results indicated a mixed effectiveness of the training modules among these populations
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